Liquid on Inferno: What does their extraordinary prior success on this map say about their future?
Before Liquid benched Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz for Lucas “steel” Lopes, they could have arguably been called the best Inferno team in the game. While I ultimately ranked FaZe number one in my November 4th map by map rankings, Liquid had a world-leading 10 wins on it in the last 100 days on LAN then and have since improved their post-player break record to 12–2.
While, yes, some of Liquid’s wins were picked up against some less than stellar teams such as NRG, coL, and Vega Squadron, they also have won Inferno games versus three teams ranked top-five in the world currently by HLTV: SK, Astralis, and North. They also have only lost to world leaders: a 16–11 defeat to Astralis in the group stage of ELEAGUE Premier and a crushing 16–3 to FaZe in the Finals of ESL One New York.
Additionally in the current metagame, Inferno is hardly a specialist pick like a Nuke or Cache. Across the four premier-level LANs held since the player break, only Mirage has been played more than Inferno.
And throughout its re-introduction this year, Inferno has been a highly contested map that even the best teams in the world have struggled to conquer. In comparison to Liquid post-player break 12–2 record, on Inferno in 2017 across various roster iterations, FaZe are 13–4, G2 are 15–7, Astralis are 11–9, SK are 13–13, and North are 8–7.
Now, all that said, Team Liquid have not been that impressive overall lately. After shocking the world with back-to-back finals appearances at ESG Tour Mykonos and ESL One New York, they looked capable of being a legitimate top-five team and a title contender. But just like the fall of OpTic gaming in late 2016, Liquid have fallen off after this brief spike.
They were eliminated in the group stage at ELEAGUE Premier’s very difficult Group D. Then, they lost to Misfits in a best-of-three at the Americas Minor (before coming back through the lower bracket). And they also lost in the semifinals to Cloud9 in a best-of-three at the North American-enteric iBUYPOWER Masters event this past weekend.
Yesterday, Liquid even surprisingly dropped Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz which certainly says something about their confidence in their overall game.
So there is a “who cares” element to their Inferno now. What does it really mean to be the best team in the world on just one map? Recall that BIG also won three times on Inferno to earn Legend status at the PGL major, but haven’t done much since then.
However, I think there are certainly things we can take away from Liquid’s (or the former Liquid’s)Inferno. Looking at their play itself, what impresses about the North American team is hard to boil down to a single element.
On the CT-side, Liquid seem to be reaping the rewards of putting their two strongest players, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski into two very skill-dependent, high-impact positions. Twistzz holds down the high-traffic default-plant side of the A-site from pit and apps with unusual success as pointed out by a recent Elmapuddy video, and EliGE is generally the forwardmost and most effective man on the B-site. According to statistics provided by Yohgcsgo, Twistzz has a international superstar-esque 124 ADR in CT gun rounds while EliGE averaged a likewise very impressive 110 ADR in the same category.
What’s been more surprising, though, is Liquid’s comparable success on the T-side despite lacking an experienced in-game leader as Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella has been calling over the more tenured Stanislaw. While they don’t necessarily have a BIG-esque quality about them (the German team seemed able to win rounds on Inferno almost completely based on the strength of a tactic or preconceived play), Liquid have a certain decisiveness and a repertoire of solid executes and that allowed them to consistently grind out T-rounds game after game.
But it’s much more than that, in contrast to the standard North American type, they seem to do so many of the little things right. They won’t be stagnant on the CT-side. They’ll switch up positions often and and sprinkle in the occasional early round aggression as a change-up. On the T-side, Liquid will likewise periodically create space for themselves with early with aggression and equal or better trading, but you also see them have such confidence in their approaches that they’ll even try risky force buys in crunch time (Liquid’s 16–14 win over Astralis New York wouldn’t have happened if not for successful force-buys in round 21 and 23).
You can call Liquid’s brief two-tournament ascent to the top of the scene a temporary aboration from their normal mean or luck or a fluke, but their brief general strength and their sustained greatness in this narrow realm says something different to me.
Recall that Gambit were known for only winning on Overpass and Cobblestone (mostly Cobble) at the beginning of this year, but eventually won the PGL Major despite only winning once on either map throughout the tournament. They were able to translate their unique strengths on these two maps, well-paced consistent T-sides and defensive retake-based CT-sides, into a broader pool and, in turn, steal away the world championship.
Now, of course, there are absolutely no guarantees that Liquid can do the same especially considering the roster change. But Liquid seem to have a good foundation to work off. They have a robust base-line of firepower, a firm fundamental grasp of the game presumably due to the influence of their coach Wilton “zews” Prado, and they seem to understand and play according to their own strengths roster-wise.
Where past leading North American teams have had very strong world-challenging runs at two to three tournaments, I think if this Liquid returns to peak functionality with Steel, the team can have sustained prosperity at a level no other team from the region has expressed previously.
Obviously, potential isn’t a durable currency, and perhaps the idea of looking into some Inferno to see the future is just a “Game of Thrones”/ “A Song of Fire and Ice” type sort of stupidity disguised as sorcery.
Either way, as we move into the end of this year and onto the next, we will see if the winds of winter and Liquid’s new roster will fan this singular flame into a broader context or extinguish it altogether.